


From The Ashes

by kuroi_nekorin



Series: From The Ashes [1]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Gen, Supernatural Elements, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 08:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2726462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroi_nekorin/pseuds/kuroi_nekorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the ashes of the explosion at SFIT and the destruction of Krei Tech rise new chances, new lives, and old phantoms- one of which is very literal and very different from what everyone involved remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Ashes

 

**From The Ashes**

  

_From the ashes of the explosion and the destruction of Krei Tech rise new chances, new lives, and old phantoms- one of which is very literal and very different from what Hiro remembers._

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own Big Hero 6. Everything belongs to Disney.**

 

 

**_Prologue:_ **

 

_Heat._

 

_Pain._

_Numbness._

 

_Betrayal._

 

_Fear._

 

_Despair._

 

_Regret._

 

_Grief._

 

_Love._

 

_Red._

 

_Nothing._

 

* * *

He shudders awake, eyes flying open to see nothing but darkness around him. He doesn’t remember anything, doesn’t know what he’s doing lying suspended in nothingness, doesn’t even know _who_ he is or why he’s there. He can only remember flashes of excruciating pain and heat, of seeing red behind his eyelids, of feeling hopeless despair crushing upon him. Slowly, he sits up and looks around him but there’s nothing and nobody else.

 

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

 

Silence stretches for infinity around him- there aren't even any echoes. He looks down, and gasps because where hands should be are instead bones, protruding out of a pair of green sleeves. He reaches up and touches his face- and feels something smooth, cool, hard.

  

He gasps, shocked and terrified because _what is happening I don’t understand whyhowwhoamIwhereohKami-samawhatwhyhowwhywhywhyhowwhyWHYWHY!_ He tries to move away from where he is, to run on legs that no longer feel steady but instead barely held together, but after a few steps it feels like he’s moving through thick black sludge and he can’t hear himself even though he knows his mouth is moving and he’s trying to scream. The blackness presses down on him and snags his arms and legs even as he struggles madly, suddenly he can’t move and his chest is heaving from exertion, from the effort of trying to escape even when-

 

_He can’t breath past the smoke filling his lungs, past the pain from where he’s been burned by fallen debris along his arms and back, though mercifully he can no longer feel anything past his waist where the fallen beam has pinned him to the ground. For what he knows is the last time in his life, he feels intense, mind-numbing terror and grief at what his fate will be. His throat feels dry, and his vision is beginning to waver. He chokes and coughs and looks up and reaches a trembling hand out as his stinging eyes make out the blurry figure standing a few feet in front of him-_

The darkness swallows him into nothing before he can remember any more.

 

* * *

 

He’s dead. It’s the only thing he can think of, other than endless “ _why”_ sand “ _how”_ s and “ _who am I”_ s.  The nothingness has receded into a sort of greyness though he still finds it hard to move more than a few steps. He has noticed his chest moving, even though he knows he cannot be breathing. Every time he exerts himself the choking sensation returns, and the smell of smoke fills his non-existent lungs to bursting. The memory from before keeps replaying in his head.

 

Had he died in a fire…? But there had been someone there with him, if he remembers correctly (which he is not sure he does).

 

Were they alright then? Had they escaped? He fervently prays they had because he doesn’t wish this on anyone (even if he cannot remember anything else). To calm his aching head he slowly examines his limbs and body- unless he’s much mistaken, the greyness isn’t the only thing that is different. Somehow he feels more solid, and there is a sort of bluish lucency forming over the white bones of his hands. He notices that he is wearing a forest green blazer over a pastel blue cardigan and a black tee shirt, that his slacks are brown, that his shoes are mint green, that even though there is an occasional smell of smoke it doesn’t linger on his clothes over long. He wonders what he did when he was alive, who he was, whether he had a family-

 

_A little baby with a tuft of jet-black hair and sleepy eyes, blinking drowsily up at him as he reaches out to him-_

_“Starting today, you’re his big brother, Tadashi!”_

Ta… dashi? Was that his name?

_A little boy with bushy untidy black hair, large brown eyes and a wide gap-toothed grin turning from a strange winged contraption half buried in a muddy pond to beam at him as hey share a fist bump-_

_“Nii-chan, you’re amazing!”_

Nii-chan? Big brother?

 

_A black haired toddler chasing him around the room on unsteady legs, giggling as he holds his hands out and crows to be picked up-_

_“Dashi, Dashi! Up up!”_

A sudden wave of warmth in his chest-

_The boy, older now and with a puppy dog pout on his face, fiddling with what looks like a black metal rabbit with a smiley face-_

_“C’mon, it’s just one fight! I just want to test out Megabot, see how well he’ll do in a real bot-fight!”_

Bot-fighting? Why does that fill him with exasperation?

 

  _A bunch of older kids running away from the boy, lying sprawled out on the ground with skinned hands and feet and bloody lips as he runs up to him-_

_“We had a little fight, nii-san. That’s all. You don’t have to mind it,”_

But he feels the surge of sadness and anger and fierce protectiveness welling up in him and his fists clench unconsciously as he feels his own body heating up

 

  _“I’m on a roll, big brother, and there’s no stopping me now!”_

images blurring together now as fragments of memories whirl through his head-

_“What, go to college like you, and have people tell me stuff I alrea- ?”_

His eyes ache, his head hurts, his ears ring, but he doesn’t care because he’s desperately reaching out for **_something, anything, let me remember, I want to remember, who are you, oh Kami-sama, pleaseithurtsitaiitaisomuchpainONEGAIPLEASEPLEASE-!!!_**

_“Ah, Ta- shi! Go- ti-ing!”_

_“If I don’t – to- scho-, I’m- to lose -mi-”_

The smell of smoke fills his nostrils, his vision blurs and clouds with smoke rising-

 

_“– want- go- he-“_

He falls to his knees coughing and choking and wheezing as hot acrid smoke billows into his lungs and he tries to let out a scream of pain but he’s still holding on because he wants to remember so badly but he cant breathe, he cant move-

_“Tadashi! No!”_

_-fire burns red across his vision_ and he’s coughing and clawing at himself _and his body hurts but not because his heart, his heart is in even more pain as it shatters from betrayal and rage-_

Knuckles scrape against his skull as heat explodes behind his eyes and dances across the top of his head-

_a face so familiar_ yet he can’t place it now _, the wink of a silver headband upon that head, cold cold blue eyes like chips of ice that burn and tear at his flesh and his heart-_

-he fights to suck air in-

_“-such a shame, Mr Hamada-“_

chokinggaspingwheezing-

_Multitudes of little black things_ microbots, they’re microbots, - made them _surround the figure as a deep rumble fills the air and he can feel the heat increasing andandand_

**_“TADASHI!!!”_ **

 

Silence and greyness and the smell of smoke.

 

* * *

He feels like he is losing whatever there is left of him.

 

He was been swallowed by the (progressively lightening) greyness over and over again, more times than he can count because his mind keeps running back, trying to remember more of his life. He is desperate to know, to focus on what he has to bring out more, but every single episode is pure agony and tears him up inside, sometimes leaving him a trembling shell, a panting wheezing wreck. But this means he has been swallowed less and less recently- that he can maintain his form to some degree so there is that.

All the same it scrapes at his soul.

 

He had a family, he is certain of that now. He knows he had- has?- a brother, a baby brother he adored with all his heart; he has an aunt he loved- still loves- who was like a mother to him, a fat pet cat, a room he shared with his brother, a home above a pretty little café where he worked weekends.

 

_“Ssh, shh, it’s alright to cry, Tadashi. Just let it out, baby.”_

_“Look at my college man, off to his first day! Oh honey I’m so proud of you, your parents would have been too!”_

_“Stress eating, because of you two!”_

_“My family! I love my family! Those are my nephews! My boys!”_

_“I’m so proud of both of you!”_

 

 And increasingly, the memories are racing back to him, cramming into his head at such a rate sometime he feels his skull might burst but he drinks it all in hungrily because yes he’s starting to remember now

 

 and he thinks he might have had friends, a group of close friends-

 

  _A quiet tough tomboy with a purple streak though her hair and a penchant to gogogo as fast as she could, who always nabbed the last egg roll or prawn cracker, she was so fast and so fierce_

-friends with whom he’d gone to college,

_A perky bubbly blonde girl with a slight accent and a love for danger and fashion and chemistry and cooking and sweet things, which was something of a contradiction but not, and she made the most delicious brownies_

 

 -friends whom he’d cherished and whose company he had enjoyed-

 

  _A muscular, friendly man with a constant need for order and perfection, who often wore green and brought sushi and healthy snacks to share with everyone and came up with health and diet plans post-exams_

-people whose presence in his life had made him feel so much the richer for it-

_A cheerful, kind-hearted guy often in a strange costume often resembling monster reptiles, spinning signboards or balancing take-out bags in his arms while talking about the latest comics_

He’d gone to a school a wonderful place where he had learnt so much and where he had been chasing his dreams and hopes like wishers chased shooting stars-

 

  _A large plump white robot with black bead eyes that looked like suzu bells at the temple, one that he’d slaved over and worked on long into the night-_

he had wanted to help people and give to society because it was what his parents would have wanted, what they had done before-

_His parents smiling and playing with him then with he and his brother, teaching them Japanese, taking them to_ hanami,

 

  _his parents stepping out the door on their way to that party one rainy night-_

 

_mourners gathered in front of twin tombstones as he and his brother and his aunt front and centre as they shed tears_ _  
_

-he’d had a mentor at his school whom he’d idolized and seen as a second father-

 

_“Burning the midnight oil, Mr Hamada?”_

_Long discussions on coursework and theories and the latest developments in robotics and on the nurse-bot he had planned on building_

But there are gaps missing in his memory, huge chunks and little crumbs that he is trying to gather back in. He’s been trying to focus whenever the memories start (usually triggered by his thoughts or by previous memories he mulls over) but he is afraid they may be forever missing. He wants to know all of who he was before, to make sense of Tadashi because he still doesn’t feel like the person he was before death.

 

 Above all though he is haunted by the scene of his death. For by now he is sure that _that_ is how he died- pinned beneath a beam in a burning building, partially burnt and half choked to death on smoke and ashes before the brilliant blinding horrible wave of heat and light and so much redorangeyellow had put him out of his misery.

 

 And every time, he sees that person. That tall silhouette framed by fire and little black robots, the figure whose face he cannot ever see clearly because whenever he tries he loses himself to the pain and heat and smoke and flames. He thinks it’s someone he probably knows well though because the wave of betrayal and grief and regret washing over him always leaves him with a sick ashy taste in his mouth.

 

 He tells himself he _will_ remember eventually despite the horrors he suffers at trying to do so. In the meantime, he focuses on the beautiful memories, especially the ones of his little brother the centre of his life.

 

* * *

  

He’s almost there, he thinks to himself. Almost there.

 

* * *

 

Ha has managed to remember more of who he was. But at the same time, he has realized that the stifling greyness has given way to blurred shapes (still in grey), shapes that over time (Maybe? He doesn’t know how to judge time any more) have sharpened. With each returning memory he’s been able to see more and more, and after the last memory he reclaimed he saw colours blooming around him when he opened his eyes. These changes always happen after particularly grueling efforts and he has come to see them as rewards. Sometimes he slips back into a world of grey blurred shapes and despairs, but these are happening much fewer and further between now.

 

He’s glad for that.

  

He doesn’t know what to make of his appearance though. It scares even him sometimes when he runs his hand over his head and feels the warm hardness and the grooves in the skull that now serves him for a head. His hands are starting to lose their skeletal look, and a whitish film of something (he cannot call it flesh) has begun to cover the bones. He dimly recalls having seen X-rays when he was still alive, and his white half-bone-half-something-else hands remind him of them.

 

But the thing he hates the most about his new appearance is his hair. Whatever colour or shape it had looked like before his death, it was nothing like the thing covering his skull now. If he focuses long enough he can forget, even for a short while, about the deep blue and white flames flames licking away there, a mockery of his hair from when he was still alive.

 

Ha hates it and fears it. He hates the way he must look now. He hates that he is still morbidly curious about how he must look.

  

He hates how even though he finds it easier to move around now, he still cannot wander too far away from this place with its blurry shapes, that it saps his strength to do so.

  

He hates that he still chokes up and starts wheezing, still smells smoke and sometimes even burnt flesh when he tried his hardest to retrieve his memories. He hates that when he tries to scream he doubles up retching and heaving as ash clouds his lungs and a hard, numbing weight crushes down on his body.

 

He hates that he has been cruelly torn from life, separated from his brother, his family, his friends. He hates that he cannot see and talk to his little brother because he feels that if possible he would be the key to remembering-

  

But he cannot, with the way he looks and his current… limitations. He fears, above all, the response of the boy who once looked up to him with such hero worship in those large eyes.

  

Most of all he hates the one who did this to him, and there are times when he literally burns to think of it (but then he feels flames licking at the edges of his eye sockets and his mouth and his fingertips, and then the wheezing starts over and he burns to nothing).

  

* * *

 

  

He can move further and further from the place now, and with more ease. The colours are _returning_ to his vision and he can see a little clearer, and he no longer feels like he’s walking through sludge and mud, and the joy burns bright, literally burns in him but for once he doesn’t care because he can move and see!

 

It feels **amazing** , especially when he realizes he can now drift a little. It takes a lot of effort though, effort he is somehow not used to experiencing ( _Was he_ _physically fit in life? he thinks, and he suddenly thinks of surfboards, gyms, and dojos)_. No matter. He still has the rest of his vision and his memories to reclaim after all. He consoles himself with what he has, and becomes even more determined.

  

* * *

 

  

He realizes that he can tell the difference between night and day when his eyesight improves, and that he can now sort-of materialize himself at will though he ends up flickering and blurry, if his limbs and body are any indication. It surprises and intrigues him, and he accidentally sends a few humans (so that was what those blobby moving shapes were!) running. He figures he needs to control himself better and resolves to do it.

 

He also makes up his mind to try and find out what he looks like because _surely it cannot be that bad-_

 

He wonders briefly if he’s just deluding himself.

 

* * *

 

  

There are others around similar to him, but apparently he’s a bit of an anomaly in that his progression into a ghost is surprisingly fast. They tell him that while they can sense anger and frustration and hatred, his malevolence and spite is lower than what they expect. The levels fluctuate depending on what he feels, and the fact that he feels a wider range of emotions than many others is intriguing to them. Dark spirits tend to lose their human shape, but he is something of an in-between and he still appears pretty human. Some of the benign ones interact with him more after that and he feels a little less lonely but he is still not satisfied. He stays away from the dark spirits though. 

 

There aren’t many ghosts or spirits around though, because the ones that do move on so quickly they’re gone in a flash. And fully formed ones are not common because apparently this city they are in “is not optimal for their existence” as he is told.

  

The fact that he is gaining strength and spirit even here sets him apart and he still feels like an outcast among them sometimes. He suspects it’s also because he feels _more_ than they do, and because there is a part of him whispering at him not to do harm to others because of the kind of person he _was_.

  

He keeps away from them after a while and goes back to replaying the mental images of his brother and his life. He misses him.

  

* * *

 

  

The wheezing and coughing still happens and he can still smell the smoke. It frustrates him to no end and causes him to flare up even more… which honestly doesn’t help. At. All.  It’s a vicious circle of fear and pain and an inability to breathe.

 

* * *

 

  

It’s a university, he thinks, and wonders how the answer came so naturally to him as he watches the people around him go about their daily lives. It’s like looking at something through a thick film of mist or fog or smoke, and no he still cannot make out details clearly but it’s enough to distract him.

  

* * *

 

 

He soars and flies high above the skies and over the city, marveling at the twinkling lights, the buildings, all the people going about their lives down below. For a few nights, he forgets, and almost gives himself up to the strange aimless sensation that comes with it but he pulls himself back with thoughts of flames and family.

 

* * *

  

With shock and horror and trembling hands he looks at the empty expanse where the machines have finished removing the rubble and debris and realizes _this is where he died._ This patch of blackened ground is where his soul is bound to for eternity unless he is able to move on in any way he can.

  

That night, he suffers one of his worst episodes to date but as he lies curled up and shivering in cold dark nothing he thinks he can make out faint features in the figure tormenting his dying moments.

 

* * *

 

He almost screams out in horror when he is finally able to manifest himself long enough in front of a mirror in some washroom.

 

Because nothing prepares him for the sigh of his skull sitting suspended above his clothes, the blue and white flames licking along the top of it in the shape of short, neatly combed hair. Except it isn’t hair and it flares up and burns in bursts as he smells smoke again.

 

Bright gold eyes edged in white, sitting in black hollow sockets stare and stare and stare until the thick smoke fills his vision and the flames grow and grow and **_GROW_** and cover himuntil he’s nothing but a fiery, monstrous wraith of self-loathing and fear-

 

How can he appear before anyone let alone his family as this… this monster?

 

He flees, and doesn’t know whether he is running or flying but he has to get away getawayrunrunrun from the monster he saw in the mirror that is himself-

  

And he doesn’t stop until his mockery of legs and lungs give way but that doesn’t stop his howls of grief, horror and rage from tearing out of his throat.

  

Afterwards, for the first time ever since his death, he experiences the sensation of crying. Or maybe that was just the rain.

 

* * *

 

  

He feels spent and drained from night after night of the same.

 

The memories have slowed to a tiny trickle.  

 

He doesn’t care anymore.

 

* * *

 

  

He can see clearly now but it cannot take away that hollow feeling in him.

 

* * *

  

One day people around him suddenly begin to shout and cry and whip out gadgets from their pockets and despite himself he listens-

  

He follows what looks like two lecturers to a large room with a screen showing scenes of destruction and carnage and a tall man in black with a snow-white mask decorated with the red of blood and something stirs in him, something hot and dark-

  

_A shadowy figure outlined by flames and little black robots and a silver headband on his head, as he stretches his hand out-_

_“Professor… He- help-p…”_

he cant breathe, _he cant breathe past the smoke filling the hall_ _and his own coughs_ a fiery heat begins to burn behind his eyes-

  

_“It’s such a shame, Mr Hamada. I always said you were too noble for your own good.”_

_He knows he’s dying_ nohe’s dead and his soul lingers as _blue eyes burn with a maniac light in a face he would have trusted with anything_ and why oh why _professor please help me_ smoke in his throat and agony in every ghostly nerve _a sphere of microbots hides the man’s back from his view no Hiro I’m so sorry I love you please forgive me_ he retches and heaves as the face bursts upon him with sudden shocking clarity and dwarfs him, morphing into a sadistic laughing mask are these his memories or just his head playing with him-

  

He can’t breathe can’t scream can’t move can’t do anything _couldn’t do anything then and_ now as the _wave of flames strips him away to nothing_ and he’s lost to red, gold, black as sprinklers go on overhead.

 

* * *

 

 

He _remembers._ The sense of betrayal and grief grows until he can’t breath on the fumes of his rage and misery because he _had a life and a family and he had a brother and all this was taken away by that man, the one he respected above all the one he would have trusted with his brother’s education._ He is a monster, a terrifying creature, separated from his loved ones forever and living in this hell of his current body all because this person has decided to steal his brother’s inventions and try to murder people with it and he wonders if he harmed his brother. The thought of that happening terrifies and enrages him in turn because what if he had hurt him, with him gone his brother would have no one around to protect him any more.

  

Even finding out what they were used for doesn’t quell him because _he dies all for nothing-_

 

His fury at the corruption of something his baby brother had made to _help_ people, allows him to keep the choking at bay for the first time. He swears in Japanese and in English to make the bastard _pay_ because the maelstrom of emotions is now directed at something solid and concrete, all the suffering and torment he has undergone is channeled towards this miserable coward-

 

Oh. He wonders if this is perhaps his ghostly obsession, this thirst for revenge.

 

Subsequent episodes after that inflicts more agony upon him though, but by then he doesn’t care, welcomes it even because he wants to get stronger, because he is too busy planning his vengeance and lashing out at whatever he can. His flames need to be built up for what he has in mind, and he needs the stamina and endurance to manifest himself for longer periods.

 

He feels like he’s losing part of himself, because from what he remembers of the _Before_ , he wasn’t like this in life. He remembers being thanked and praised and teased for his kindness, his nobility, his pureness but he’s a monster now covered in flames or rage and sorrow that drown out the whispering voices in his head telling him to stop and reflect. He is not that person any more no matter how he tries sometimes.

 

His only bright spots are the happy memories he had with family and friends but they just serve to remind him of what was lost. Some part of him knows he’s spiraling into something monstrous that would have horrified himself had he still been alive, but he’s NOT alive and he wants his revenge, wants this grudge settled because he feels like he cannot find peace any other way until he brings this murderer to justice. He doesn’t feel human but that’s because he’s not human any more. And all he wants is to seek out this man and prevent him from doing any more harm, prevent him from hurting more innocents, to stop what has happened and is happening to him from occurring to anyone else especially his baby brother. It’s not enough that the man has been caught- he needs to **_pay_**.

 

He notices the blue white flames steadily darkening, he notices the golden glow of his eyes giving way to redness, he sees that his skeletal hands have returned and that his aura has gone from white to blood red, but he doesn’t care.  

  

With a single-minded, savage determination he buries himself in the now-black flames, bides his time, and gives in to his inner darkness.

 

* * *

  

Meanwhile, a white huggable vinyl robot with _suzu_ bell eyes and a soft marshmallow-y build opens his eyes in the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab and says, “Hello, Hiro.”

 

 

 

**_PROLOGUE END_ **

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is inspired by a post I saw on Tumblr user dittolicous, a what-if scenario (A BH6/ Mystery Skulls Ghost mashup- What if Tadashi comes back as a ghost? An angry spirit set to kill Callaghan for just about everything). It piqued my interest and I couldn’t get it out of my head for days so here it is.
> 
> For Tadashi’s ghostly design, I based it off Lewis from Mystery Skulls’ ghost video, some of the ghosts for Danny Phantom, and also on the dark spirits in Legend of Korra. (his initial form resembles Lewis, his corrupted form sort of looks like a cross between Lewis and the dark spirits especially Unavaatu). He’s still a relatively young spirit and a very emotional one so his appearance is still rather inhuman and incomplete. Also, since he’s unable to let go of his death, there are certain side effects.
> 
> He’s not able to manifest himself as human-looking because of these negative emotions and his recent formation; same goes for his powers. He can’t control them fully, especially the fire, which is one of the reasons why he runs when he gets emotional (deep down his subconscious doesn’t want to hurt anyone).
> 
> I’m from a country and a cultural background where stories of ghosts are quite common (we have our own haunted highway -where accidents happen with a freakish frequency- among a bunch of other haunted spots and it’s a common urban myth in my hometown that most of our schools (!!!) are built on land that used to be WW2 burial grounds or internment camps that no one wants). I grew up listening to these tales and urban myths, and so I combined them with this idea and voila! 
> 
> I plan to turn this into a multichapter fic, but please bear in mind that updates might be a bit slow! Finals week is coming up soon (excellent timing I have there, har-de-har) and I’m currently in university and on a scholarship so there’s… double the pressure… Ahaha… *Tears up *
> 
> Please leave reviews if you wish, but do be gentle; my writing soul is still a fragile bud. ^^ I haven’t written in ages and this is only my second fanfiction for a fandom. But BH6 has changed my life so I wanted to at least get this out there. 
> 
> I tried posting this to FFNet but for some reason it's not loading. I'll probably try again tonight but I think I'm a tad more comfortable with AO3 as of now...?


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